Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Encyclopedia
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a free market
think tank
headquartered in Midland, Michigan
. It is the USA’s largest state-based free market think tank. The Center’s stated mission is "improving the quality of life for all Michigan citizens by promoting sound solutions to state and local policy questions” by assisting "policy makers, scholars, business people, the media and the public by providing objective analysis of Michigan issues” with the goal of helping “to equip Michigan citizens and other decision makers to better evaluate policy options."
The Mackinac Center conducts policy research on a broad range of public policy issues. Its commentaries frequently appear in Michigan newspapers, and its policy staff are often guests on radio and television news programs around the state. It also conducts educational programs such as workshops for high school debate students and sponsors MichiganVotes.org, a comprehensive online legislative voting record database. Mackinac Center scholars generally recommend lower state and local taxes, reduced regulatory authority for state agencies, labor law revisions including making Michigan a right-to-work state, school choice
via universal tuition tax credits, and enhanced protection of individual property rights. They have been outspoken in their opposition to state higher taxes, economic central planning programs including subsidies, targeted corporate tax breaks, etc.
The Mackinac Center is nonprofit and non-partisan, and its scholars’ and policy staff’s views are not consistently aligned with any political party. For example, the Center was critical of former Republican Governor John Engler
’s use of selective tax breaks granted to certain companies, and has praised efforts by former Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm
to enact criminal sentencing reform as a way to reduce the state’s prison population.
, which is considered to be an iconic Michigan image. The Center began operations in 1987 with no office or full-time staff, but formally opened offices in Midland in 1988 with its first president, Lawrence W. Reed, an economist, writer, and speaker who had chaired the economics department at Northwood University. The Lansing-based Cornerstone Foundation provided early direction and some funding. The first budget under Reed was $80,000. In 1997 the Mackinac Center moved from rented offices to its current headquarters after having raised $2.4 million to renovate a former Woolworth’s department store on Midland’s Main Street. Lawrence Reed served as president from the Center’s founding until September, 2008, when he assumed the title President Emeritus and also became the president of the Foundation for Economic Education
. Former Chief Operating Officer Joseph G. Lehman was named the Mackinac Center’s president on September 1, 2008.
The Center was created with funding by the Cornerstone Foundation. Created by Dykema Gossett attorney Richard D. McLellan
and located in the same building as the Dykema Gossett law firm, Cornerstone’s original board included McLellan
, then-Senator John Engler, and D. Joseph Olson then General Council for Amerisure Insurance. Fundraising activity was active from 1984 to 1991, with peak activity in 1987 when Cornerstone established the Mackinac Center. The insurance industry (primarily Citizen’s) provided initial funding, amounting to $306,382 during this period. Various officials of Dow Corning and Dow Chemical paid $335,986.
In a 2011 interview, founder Olson said that the Center was first conceived in a Lansing Michigan bar at a meeting between he, another insurance company lobbyist Tom Hoeg, Richard McLellan and then Senator John Engler: "In 1986, John Engler, then majority leader of the state Legislature and later governor, summoned attorney Richard McLellan and the state's two top insurance lobbyists, Olson and Hoeg, to the private club in Lansing." It would be designed to bolster the insurance lobby's influence in the legislature: "Back in 1980s, Hoeg said the insurance industry was losing a lot of battles in the state Legislature and didn't have what he called "intellectual authority," namely research and information to support their ideas."
When asked by Detroit’s Metro Times in 1996, the Center’s President Lawrence Reed said: "Our funding sources are primarily foundations … with the rest coming from corporations and individuals," but that "… revealing our contributors would be a tremendous diversion…"
In that year, the Mackinac Center earned only $2,630 (“program sales”); the rest of its revenues came from tax-deductible contributions. Funding from non-profit foundations can be tracked by an examination of the IRS returns they file. From 2002 to 2006, the following conservative and corporate foundations funded the Center:
These contributions total $7,198,700; the remaining revenue for this period (about $14.5 million) was contributed by entities that are not required to file statements with the federal government: individuals and corporations. In Strategic Grantmaking, Foundations and the School Privatization Movement, Richard Cohen estimates that one-half to two-thirds of all corporate grantmaking is: “made through the CEO’s office or the marketing department, for which there is no public disclosure requirement.” In 2006 the Center’s revenues totaled $2,711,545. Its funding has grown substantially over the years, from just over $1.7 million in 1998. Its 2005 payroll reached $1,790,963, with a staff of 40 people.
and Adam Smith
. More recently, the Center has spoken approvingly about the Tea Party movement. The Mackinac Center often cites work by three Nobel Laureates who are unaffiliated with the Mackinac Center: Milton Friedman
, who first proposed the concept of school choice
, which is now promoted by the Center’s Education Initiative; F.A. Hayek whose ideas about spontaneous order and inability of government central planners to create thriving economies are seen in the Center’s criticism of targeted tax credits and corporate subsidies used by government economic development bureaucracies; and James M. Buchanan
, whose work in public choice economics
has informed many of the organization’s critiques of state government programs. Although it is sometimes called “conservative” (including by the New York Times and the Raleigh News and Observer), the Mackinac Center characterizes the label as inaccurate, pointing out that it does not address social issues usually identified with modern conservatism including abortion, censorship, and gambling, and that “free market” is a more useful shorthand description of its policy expressions. The Center’s ideology is most accurately described as classical liberal, holding that civil society
responses to social and economic problems are more effective than political ones, and that limited government
is more conducive to enhancing individual liberty than the welfare state
.
, and the privatization of non-instructional services such as transportation, custodial, and food service. Center analysts have been critical of what they conclude to be excessive influence in school governance of school employee unions, including the Michigan Education Association
. In 1993 it published a study on the Michigan Education Special Services Association (MESSA), a school health insurance administrator created by the MEA, characterizing the entity as the “MEA’s money machine.” Following publication of the study a state statute was adopted prohibiting unions from making the selection of health insurance providers a bargaining issue. Another new law made privatization of non-instructional services a prohibited subject of collective bargaining in public schools.
s have enjoyed faster economic growth than states which allow employers to make union membership a condition of employment. The Center has also been critical of state and federal “prevailing wage
” and minimum wage
laws, and has argued for more financial and political activity disclosures by unions, including stronger “paycheck protection” laws protecting the rights of employees working under union contracts to pay only those union dues or fees necessary to cover the costs of a union's employee representation duties.
and by regulatory taking
.
These are all issue areas where both changes of the type favored by the Mackinac Center have to some degree occurred in Michigan, and about which its scholars have published studies and articles, testified in legislative committees, made arguments on the radio, issued press releases, and more. In other areas the policies supported by the Center have not come about, such as reducing state budgets, school choice
, a right-to-work law, and more. Determining the extent to which the changes that have occurred would have happened in the absence of the Mackinac Center is not possible. It can be said that the Center has provided much “intellectual ammunition” to policy makers who share its point of view. In addition, the responses of some of its public policy adversaries including the Michigan Education Association suggest that the Mackinac Center has had some influence.
, an umbrella organization of conservative think tanks operating at the state level, the Mackinac Center promotes and supports similar activity across the United States. In November 2006 the New York Times published a two-part series about state based free market think tanks that described how the Mackinac Center’s biannual Leadership Conferences had trained nearly 500 think tank executives from 42 nations and nearly every state. Times Journalist Jason DeParle reported that, “When the Mackinac Center was founded in 1987, there were just three other conservative state-level policy institutes. Now there are 48, in 42 states …” Describing one free market think tank founded by an alumnus of the Leadership Conference, DeParle said, “No one is more central to this replicating effort than (Mackinac Center President Mr. Lawrence) Reed …”
school employees union), environmental activists, and others. One of its opponents has characterized the Center and other state-based free-market think tanks as "propaganda mills." In 2001, the MEA created a new organization called the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. Remarks by union president Luigi Battaglieri at the press conference announcing the entity suggested that at least in part it was formed to serve a counter to the Mackinac Center’s influence in Michigan education policy. In a subsequent fundraising letter the Mackinac Center quoted Battaglieri in his press conference saying about this, “Frankly I admire what they have done.” The Michigan Education Association filed a lawsuit against the Mackinac Center, which alleged that it had “misappropriated likenesses” from the union and its president. In 2004 the Michigan Court of Appeals threw out the lawsuit, and the union chose not to appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
headquartered in Midland, Michigan
Midland, Michigan
Midland is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan in the Tri-Cities region of the state. It is the county seat of Midland County. The city's population was 41,863 as of the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Midland Micropolitan Statistical Area....
. It is the USA’s largest state-based free market think tank. The Center’s stated mission is "improving the quality of life for all Michigan citizens by promoting sound solutions to state and local policy questions” by assisting "policy makers, scholars, business people, the media and the public by providing objective analysis of Michigan issues” with the goal of helping “to equip Michigan citizens and other decision makers to better evaluate policy options."
The Mackinac Center conducts policy research on a broad range of public policy issues. Its commentaries frequently appear in Michigan newspapers, and its policy staff are often guests on radio and television news programs around the state. It also conducts educational programs such as workshops for high school debate students and sponsors MichiganVotes.org, a comprehensive online legislative voting record database. Mackinac Center scholars generally recommend lower state and local taxes, reduced regulatory authority for state agencies, labor law revisions including making Michigan a right-to-work state, school choice
School choice
School choice is a term used to describe a wide array of programs aimed at giving families the opportunity to choose the school their children will attend. As a matter of form, school choice does not give preference to one form of schooling or another, rather manifests itself whenever a student...
via universal tuition tax credits, and enhanced protection of individual property rights. They have been outspoken in their opposition to state higher taxes, economic central planning programs including subsidies, targeted corporate tax breaks, etc.
The Mackinac Center is nonprofit and non-partisan, and its scholars’ and policy staff’s views are not consistently aligned with any political party. For example, the Center was critical of former Republican Governor John Engler
John Engler
John Mathias Engler is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. He served as the 46th Governor of Michigan from 1991 to 2003....
’s use of selective tax breaks granted to certain companies, and has praised efforts by former Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm
Jennifer Granholm
Jennifer Mulhern Granholm is a Canadian-born American politician, educator, and author who served as Attorney General and 47th Governor of the U.S. state of Michigan. A member of the Democratic Party, Granholm became Michigan's first female governor on January 1, 2003, when she succeeded Governor...
to enact criminal sentencing reform as a way to reduce the state’s prison population.
History
The genesis of the Mackinac Center is described on its Web site as follows: “The Mackinac Center was founded in 1987 by a group of citizens who met on Mackinac Island and shared an interest in making Michigan a better place to live and work. They were concerned about the state's direction and the fact that no institution in Michigan was developing policy ideas that harnessed the benefits of our free enterprise system.” This group formed what ultimately became the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, so named after Mackinac IslandMackinac Island
Mackinac Island is an island and resort area covering in land area, part of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in Lake Huron, at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, between the state's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The island was home to a Native American settlement before European...
, which is considered to be an iconic Michigan image. The Center began operations in 1987 with no office or full-time staff, but formally opened offices in Midland in 1988 with its first president, Lawrence W. Reed, an economist, writer, and speaker who had chaired the economics department at Northwood University. The Lansing-based Cornerstone Foundation provided early direction and some funding. The first budget under Reed was $80,000. In 1997 the Mackinac Center moved from rented offices to its current headquarters after having raised $2.4 million to renovate a former Woolworth’s department store on Midland’s Main Street. Lawrence Reed served as president from the Center’s founding until September, 2008, when he assumed the title President Emeritus and also became the president of the Foundation for Economic Education
Foundation for Economic Education
The Foundation for Economic Education is one of the oldest free-market organizations established in the United States to study and advance the freedom philosophy. Murray Rothbard recognizes FEE for creating a "crucial open center" that he credits with launching the movement...
. Former Chief Operating Officer Joseph G. Lehman was named the Mackinac Center’s president on September 1, 2008.
The Center was created with funding by the Cornerstone Foundation. Created by Dykema Gossett attorney Richard D. McLellan
Richard D. McLellan
Richard D. McLellan is a lawyer at McLellan Law Offices PLLC. He argued on the side of the appellee in the United States Supreme Court case Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652...
and located in the same building as the Dykema Gossett law firm, Cornerstone’s original board included McLellan
Richard D. McLellan
Richard D. McLellan is a lawyer at McLellan Law Offices PLLC. He argued on the side of the appellee in the United States Supreme Court case Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652...
, then-Senator John Engler, and D. Joseph Olson then General Council for Amerisure Insurance. Fundraising activity was active from 1984 to 1991, with peak activity in 1987 when Cornerstone established the Mackinac Center. The insurance industry (primarily Citizen’s) provided initial funding, amounting to $306,382 during this period. Various officials of Dow Corning and Dow Chemical paid $335,986.
In a 2011 interview, founder Olson said that the Center was first conceived in a Lansing Michigan bar at a meeting between he, another insurance company lobbyist Tom Hoeg, Richard McLellan and then Senator John Engler: "In 1986, John Engler, then majority leader of the state Legislature and later governor, summoned attorney Richard McLellan and the state's two top insurance lobbyists, Olson and Hoeg, to the private club in Lansing." It would be designed to bolster the insurance lobby's influence in the legislature: "Back in 1980s, Hoeg said the insurance industry was losing a lot of battles in the state Legislature and didn't have what he called "intellectual authority," namely research and information to support their ideas."
Budget and finances
The Mackinac Center is classified as a 501(c)(3) organization under U.S. Internal Revenue Code which means it is legally limited in the amount of money it can spend on legislative efforts. The institute performs no contract research and does not accept government funding. For revenue, the institute is largely dependent on private contributions. Federal law does not require 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations to disclose the identity of their donors, and in National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama the U.S. Supreme Court turned back efforts to force such disclosure by nonprofits, although that case involved the publication of member lists, not donor lists. In 2004 the Michigan Court of Appeals threw out a lawsuit filed against the Mackinac Center by the Michigan Education Association against the Mackinac Center in which one of the remedies sought by the union was a list identifying the Center’s donors. The court ruling was based on the MEA's failure to show actual malice. It did not reach the question of whether the Mackinac Center's donor lists should be made public.When asked by Detroit’s Metro Times in 1996, the Center’s President Lawrence Reed said: "Our funding sources are primarily foundations … with the rest coming from corporations and individuals," but that "… revealing our contributors would be a tremendous diversion…"
In that year, the Mackinac Center earned only $2,630 (“program sales”); the rest of its revenues came from tax-deductible contributions. Funding from non-profit foundations can be tracked by an examination of the IRS returns they file. From 2002 to 2006, the following conservative and corporate foundations funded the Center:
These contributions total $7,198,700; the remaining revenue for this period (about $14.5 million) was contributed by entities that are not required to file statements with the federal government: individuals and corporations. In Strategic Grantmaking, Foundations and the School Privatization Movement, Richard Cohen estimates that one-half to two-thirds of all corporate grantmaking is: “made through the CEO’s office or the marketing department, for which there is no public disclosure requirement.” In 2006 the Center’s revenues totaled $2,711,545. Its funding has grown substantially over the years, from just over $1.7 million in 1998. Its 2005 payroll reached $1,790,963, with a staff of 40 people.
Principles
The Mackinac Center’s work is rooted in the tradition of John LockeJohn Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
and Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
. More recently, the Center has spoken approvingly about the Tea Party movement. The Mackinac Center often cites work by three Nobel Laureates who are unaffiliated with the Mackinac Center: Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman was an American economist, statistician, academic, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades...
, who first proposed the concept of school choice
School choice
School choice is a term used to describe a wide array of programs aimed at giving families the opportunity to choose the school their children will attend. As a matter of form, school choice does not give preference to one form of schooling or another, rather manifests itself whenever a student...
, which is now promoted by the Center’s Education Initiative; F.A. Hayek whose ideas about spontaneous order and inability of government central planners to create thriving economies are seen in the Center’s criticism of targeted tax credits and corporate subsidies used by government economic development bureaucracies; and James M. Buchanan
James M. Buchanan
James McGill Buchanan, Jr. is an American economist known for his work on public choice theory, for which he received the 1986 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Buchanan's work initiated research on how politicians' self-interest and non-economic forces affect government economic policy...
, whose work in public choice economics
Public choice theory
In economics, public choice theory is the use of modern economic tools to study problems that traditionally are in the province of political science...
has informed many of the organization’s critiques of state government programs. Although it is sometimes called “conservative” (including by the New York Times and the Raleigh News and Observer), the Mackinac Center characterizes the label as inaccurate, pointing out that it does not address social issues usually identified with modern conservatism including abortion, censorship, and gambling, and that “free market” is a more useful shorthand description of its policy expressions. The Center’s ideology is most accurately described as classical liberal, holding that civil society
Civil society
Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...
responses to social and economic problems are more effective than political ones, and that limited government
Limited government
Limited government is a government which anything more than minimal governmental intervention in personal liberties and the economy is generally disallowed by law, usually in a written constitution. It is written in the United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 8...
is more conducive to enhancing individual liberty than the welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
.
Education policy
Mackinac Center studies and reports have promoted Universal Tuition Tax Credits and charter schools as forms of school choiceSchool choice
School choice is a term used to describe a wide array of programs aimed at giving families the opportunity to choose the school their children will attend. As a matter of form, school choice does not give preference to one form of schooling or another, rather manifests itself whenever a student...
, and the privatization of non-instructional services such as transportation, custodial, and food service. Center analysts have been critical of what they conclude to be excessive influence in school governance of school employee unions, including the Michigan Education Association
Michigan Education Association
The Michigan Education Association , headquartered in East Lansing, Michigan, is a labor union representing more than 157,000 teachers, faculty and education support staff throughout the state. Usually referred to as a “teachers' union” its membership also includes college faculty, public school...
. In 1993 it published a study on the Michigan Education Special Services Association (MESSA), a school health insurance administrator created by the MEA, characterizing the entity as the “MEA’s money machine.” Following publication of the study a state statute was adopted prohibiting unions from making the selection of health insurance providers a bargaining issue. Another new law made privatization of non-instructional services a prohibited subject of collective bargaining in public schools.
Fiscal policy
The Center's Fiscal Policy Initiative is described on the Center’s Web site as working to “limit taxation, champion broad-based, private sector economic development, and reduce government outlays through privatization and spending cuts.” In 2007 Mackinac Center analysts were active in making the case against a $1.4 billion tax increase proposed by the Granholm administration, publishing studies and op-eds, and making numerous radio appearances arguing that state government should restructure itself to eliminate the need for tax hikes. On the issue of targeted tax incentives, a 2005 Mackinac Center study showed that in its first 10 years Michigan’s “flagship” economic development program, the Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA) created by former Gov. John Engler and continued by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, did not generate any overall increase in employment or personal income in counties that had MEGA projects compared to ones that did not. In 1996, 2002 and 2004 studies were published analyzing the state budget line-item by line-item and recommending privatization or elimination of many government activities. The Initiative publishes an annual survey of privatization of non-instructional services in Michigan’s 552 school districts, and also publishes a biannual journal, the Michigan Privatization Report, which is sent to Michigan municipal officials and approximately 4,200 public school board members.Labor policy
The first article on the Mackinac Center Web site recommending that Michigan become a right-to-work state is dated 1996, which is the year former National Labor Relations Board member Robert Hunter joined the Center. In 2002 the Labor Policy Initiative published a study presenting evidence that states with Right-to-work lawRight-to-work law
Right-to-work laws are statutes enforced in twenty-two U.S. states, mostly in the southern or western U.S., allowed under provisions of the federal Taft–Hartley Act, which prohibit agreements between labor unions and employers that make membership, payment of union dues, or fees a condition of...
s have enjoyed faster economic growth than states which allow employers to make union membership a condition of employment. The Center has also been critical of state and federal “prevailing wage
Prevailing wage
In government contracting, a prevailing wage is defined as the hourly wage, usual benefits and overtime, paid to the majority of workers, laborers, and mechanics within a particular area. Prevailing wages are established by regulatory agencies for each trade and occupation employed in the...
” and minimum wage
Minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...
laws, and has argued for more financial and political activity disclosures by unions, including stronger “paycheck protection” laws protecting the rights of employees working under union contracts to pay only those union dues or fees necessary to cover the costs of a union's employee representation duties.
Legal Studies Project
According to the Mackinac Center Web site the Project “produces legal analysis of state and national policy issues in order to better inform policymakers, the media and the public,” and in strategic cases at both the state and federal levels the initiative writes and submits amicus curiae briefs that “explore the broader constitutional, statutory and public policy considerations at stake.” These briefs are published on the Center’s Web site.Science, Environment, and Technology Initiative
This Initiative’s stated mission is to promote “scientifically sound and market-based polices” that “enhance environmental protection and public health, and maximizes the benefits of new technologies.” It publishes studies and the quarterly Michigan Science magazine, sponsors student essay contests, and more. The Center has suggested that "socialist ideology is alive and well" in the environmental movement and says "Global climate change is also the perfect issue to advocate for one-world governance, as air knows no national boundaries."Students for a Free Economy
A campus outreach project and blog, SFE visits Michigan colleges and universities “taking policy ideas to students . . . who may be unfamiliar with the ways that markets affect their lives and the issues they care about.” It also sponsors "writing, research and art contests with cash prizes, gain access to internship and scholarship opportunities, and more.”Property Rights Network
The Network’s stated mission is "preserving and expanding private property rights in Michigan by elevating public awareness of these rights and how to protect them; encouraging policymakers to respect property rights when crafting laws and regulations; and identifying, organizing and supporting concerned property owners, thereby establishing an effective statewide property-rights coalition.” In 2006 initiative scholars “educated legislators who drafted the Proposal 4 ballot measure that prevents Kelo-type takings in Michigan.” The network has held citizen meetings around the state raising consciousness regarding both physical taking of private property via the government’s power of eminent domainEminent domain
Eminent domain , compulsory purchase , resumption/compulsory acquisition , or expropriation is an action of the state to seize a citizen's private property, expropriate property, or seize a citizen's rights in property with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent...
and by regulatory taking
Regulatory taking
Regulatory taking refers to a situation in which a government regulates a property to such a degree that the regulation effectively amounts to an exercise of the government's eminent domain power without actually divesting the property's owner of title to the property.-United States law:In common...
.
MichiganTransparency.org
Also called the "Show Michigan the Money Project”, this initiative uses press releases and Freedom of Information Act requests to encourage governments to meet their “obligation to disclose their actions and expenditures” and to “make their checkbook spending directly available to the public.“ The MichiganTransparency.org Web site contains links to the Center’s own school finance database and to various government sites disclosing spending details, and other information sources.MichiganVotes.org
MichiganVotes.org is a free legislative database that since 2001 has provided concise, neutral-point-of-view, plain-English descriptions of every bill, amendment and vote in the Michigan state House and Senate. Voting records and bills are searchable and sortable by legislator, issue category, keyword, date range, or a combination of these. It also contains a “missed votes report” that allows users to see how many and which votes each legislature has missed within a user-selected date range. As of mid-2008 the site contains descriptions of some 12,000 bills, 10,000 roll call votes, 9,000 amendments, and 2400 new laws.High school debate workshops and essay contests
Each year the Mackinac Center sponsors a series of one-day high school debate workshops at locations around the state, at which students from different schools are provided with speakers, news and research material related to the annual national debate topic. In recent years the Center has offered a $1,000 scholarship to one student at each debate workshop location who wins a panel-judged essay contest. Another contest offered a $500 prize to a student in grades 6 through 12 who “explores a scientific fact or exposes a scientific fallacy in a book, movie, song or other pop culture medium.” In 2007 the Center announced a “Freedom in Fiction Prize” competition offering 10 cash prizes of $10,000 to authors who write a new book with “. . . characters that demonstrate an appreciation for liberty, free markets and/or explicitly or symbolically oppose government oppression or restraints on their freedom . . .” and which does not “. . . advance themes or characters who promote government-sponsored solutions; vilify entrepreneurship; degrade personal initiative, self-reliance and responsibility, or regurgitate discredited myths and misconceptions about liberty and free enterprise.”Studies
The Mackinac Center’s Web site lists some 120 studies published since its founding. A sampling includes A School Privatization Primer, The Economic Effects of Right-To-Work Laws, The Opportunities and Limitations of Biomonitoring and Recommendations to Strengthen Civil Society and Balance Michigan’s State Budget.Periodicals
The Center also publishes the periodicals Michigan Education Report, Michigan Privatization Report, Michigan Science, Michigan Capitol Confidential, and Impact, plus a weekly on-line 'Michigan Education Digest that is also e-mailed to subscribers.Other publications
On its Web site the Mackinac Center posts four new Current Comments each week, and each month it mails and e-mails several op-ed length “Viewpoints” to daily and weekly newspapers around Michigan. The Center’s Web site also lists 11 books that it has published dating back to 1990, and a number of monographs including Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy, The Inspiring Story of Thomas Clarkson: A Student's Essay that Changed the World, both by Lawrence Reed, and With Clear Eyes, Sincere Hearts and Open Minds: A Second Look at Public Education in America by Andrew Coulson. Finally, the Center has published several amicus curiae briefs that it submitted in court cases related to important issues, such as Rapanos v. United States.Influence on public policy
Isolating the degree to which the activities of a state-based “non-partisan research and educational institute” contribute to public policy changes is inherently imprecise. A 2008 column by Mackinac Center President Joseph Lehman stated:
(In 1988) Michigan had a death tax and an ’intangibles’ tax. Income tax rates were higher. Property taxes were higher, and increases were not capped by law. Government assigned kids to schools by ZIP code alone. Schools were funded more on the basis of nearby land prices, not the number of students enrolled. Teacher strikes were legal and frequent. Unions needed no one’s permission to take political contributions right out of workers’ paychecks. Governments could legally take property from one owner and transfer it to another for ‘economic development.’ Lawmakers whose greatest skill was pleasing powerful special interests could enjoy uninterrupted decades entrenched in the Legislature. The terms ‘free market’ and ‘privatization’ were in the dictionary, but rarely the news.”
These are all issue areas where both changes of the type favored by the Mackinac Center have to some degree occurred in Michigan, and about which its scholars have published studies and articles, testified in legislative committees, made arguments on the radio, issued press releases, and more. In other areas the policies supported by the Center have not come about, such as reducing state budgets, school choice
School choice
School choice is a term used to describe a wide array of programs aimed at giving families the opportunity to choose the school their children will attend. As a matter of form, school choice does not give preference to one form of schooling or another, rather manifests itself whenever a student...
, a right-to-work law, and more. Determining the extent to which the changes that have occurred would have happened in the absence of the Mackinac Center is not possible. It can be said that the Center has provided much “intellectual ammunition” to policy makers who share its point of view. In addition, the responses of some of its public policy adversaries including the Michigan Education Association suggest that the Mackinac Center has had some influence.
Influence with other think tanks
As a member of the State Policy NetworkState Policy Network
The State Policy Network is a U.S. national network of free-market oriented think tanks focused on individual U.S. states. SPN is based in Arlington, Virginia.-History:SPN was founded in 1992 by Thomas A...
, an umbrella organization of conservative think tanks operating at the state level, the Mackinac Center promotes and supports similar activity across the United States. In November 2006 the New York Times published a two-part series about state based free market think tanks that described how the Mackinac Center’s biannual Leadership Conferences had trained nearly 500 think tank executives from 42 nations and nearly every state. Times Journalist Jason DeParle reported that, “When the Mackinac Center was founded in 1987, there were just three other conservative state-level policy institutes. Now there are 48, in 42 states …” Describing one free market think tank founded by an alumnus of the Leadership Conference, DeParle said, “No one is more central to this replicating effort than (Mackinac Center President Mr. Lawrence) Reed …”
News coverage
The Mackinac Center is very effective in getting its policy staff and scholars published in newspapers around the state, cited in news reports, and interviewed on radio talk shows. It posts most of these in a “Mackinac Center in the News” feature on its Web site. For 2007 there are 450 separate citations listed .Opponents
The Center has promoted policies that would reduce the influence of unions in both the private and public sector; supported alternatives to conventional public schools; recommended reducing the authority of state regulatory agencies including the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality; and recommended cutting state spending. Not surprisingly, it is viewed as an adversary by unions (especially the Michigan Education AssociationMichigan Education Association
The Michigan Education Association , headquartered in East Lansing, Michigan, is a labor union representing more than 157,000 teachers, faculty and education support staff throughout the state. Usually referred to as a “teachers' union” its membership also includes college faculty, public school...
school employees union), environmental activists, and others. One of its opponents has characterized the Center and other state-based free-market think tanks as "propaganda mills." In 2001, the MEA created a new organization called the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. Remarks by union president Luigi Battaglieri at the press conference announcing the entity suggested that at least in part it was formed to serve a counter to the Mackinac Center’s influence in Michigan education policy. In a subsequent fundraising letter the Mackinac Center quoted Battaglieri in his press conference saying about this, “Frankly I admire what they have done.” The Michigan Education Association filed a lawsuit against the Mackinac Center, which alleged that it had “misappropriated likenesses” from the union and its president. In 2004 the Michigan Court of Appeals threw out the lawsuit, and the union chose not to appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Policy staff
- Kenneth Braun, Policy Analyst
- Burton Folsom, Senior Fellow in Economic Education
- Russ Harding, Director of the Property Rights Network
- Robert Hunter, Senior Fellow in Labor Policy
- Michael Jahr, Director of Communications
- Paul Kersey, Director of Labor Policy
- Michael LaFaive, Director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative
- Joseph Lehman, President
- David Littmann, Senior Economist
- Jack McHugh, Senior Legislative Analyst
- Lawrence ReedLawrence ReedLawrence W. Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education , headquartered in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, a position he has held since September 1, 2008. Before joining FEE, Reed served as president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Midland, Michigan based free-market...
, President Emeritus - Louis Schimmel, Director of Municipal Finance
- Michael D. Van Beek, Director of Education Policy
- Patrick Wright, Senior Legal Analyst
Staff compensation
The chart below lists the 2005 and 2006 total compensation for officers and highest paid five employees, including benefit contributions and expense accounts:Adjunct scholars
- Donald Alexander
- Michael Arens
- John Attarian
- Thomas Bertonneau
- Bradley Birzer
- Peter BoettkePeter BoettkePeter J. Boettke is an American economist of the Austrian School.-Early life and education:Boettke was born in Rahway, New Jersey to Fred and Elinor Boettke and remained there until he moved to Pennsylvania to attend Thiel College in Greenville and later Grove City College. He became interested in...
- Theodore Bolema
- Michael Bond
- Mark Brandly
- William Browne
- Paul Chesser
- Stephen Colarelli
- Andrew Coulson
- Keith Crocker
- Robert Crowner
- Richard Cutler
- Richard EbelingRichard EbelingRichard M. Ebeling is an American libertarian author, and was president of the Foundation for Economic Education from 2003 to 2008....
- Jefferson Edgens
- David Felbeck
- Wayland Gardner
- James Gattuso
- John Grether
- Robert Hanna
- Michael Heberling
- Ormand Hook
- Harry Hutchison
- David Janda
- Diane Katz
- Annette Kirk
- Robert Kleiman
- Dale Matcheck
- Paul McCrackenPaul McCrackenPaul W. McCracken is an American economist born in Richland, Iowa. He is currently the Edmund Ezra Day Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Business Administration, Economics, and Public Policy at the University of Michigan. McCracken was chairman of the President's Council of Economic...
- S. Melzer
- Glenn Moots
- Paul Moreno
- Robert Murphy
- George Nastas
- John Pafford
- Mark J. Perry
- Gregory Rehmke
- Stephen Safranek
- Adam Schaeffer
- Howard Schwartz
- James Sheehan
- Robert SiricoRobert SiricoRobert A. Sirico is an American Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. He is a well-known political and cultural commentator.-Biography:...
- Jürgen Skoppek
- Bradley A. SmithBradley A. SmithBradley A. Smith is a professor at Capital University Law School, who was Commissioner, Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Federal Election Commission between 2000 and 2005 and is best known for his writing and activities opposing campaign finance regulation.-Academic career and influence:A...
- Daniel Smith
- John Taylor
- Richard VedderRichard VedderRichard Vedder is an American economist, historian, author, columnist, and currently a professor at Ohio University.-Biography:Born in 1940, Vedder earned his B.A. in economics at Northwestern University in 1962 and his Ph.D in economics at the University of Illinois in 1965. He has since studied...
- Harry Veryser
- John Walter
- William Wilson
- Gary L. WolframGary L. WolframGary Wolfram is William E. Simon Professor in Economics and Public Policy at Hillsdale College and President of Hillsdale Policy Group, a consulting firm specializing in taxation and policy analysis...
Former staff
- Robert P. Hunter, former member of the National Labor Relations Board
- Lawrence W. Reed, founding president of Mackinac Center, now president of Foundation for Economic Education
- Andrew J. Coulson, now director of Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom
- Dr. Ryan S. Olson, now Director for Education Reform at the Kern Family Foundation
- Joseph P. Overton (1960–2003), creator of the "Overton windowOverton windowThe Overton window, in political theory, describes a "window" in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on a particular issue. It is named after its originator, Joseph P...
" while serving as Mackinac Center vice president
Current members
- Fitzsimmons, Joseph J., retired president, University Microfilms InternationalUniversity Microfilms InternationalUniversity Microfilms International or UMI, was founded in the 1930s by Eugene Power in Ann Arbor. By June 1938, Power worked in two rented rooms from a downtown Ann Arbor funeral parlor, specializing in microphotography to preserve library collections...
- Gadola, Paul V., United States District Judge, Reagan Campaign Chair, Federalist Society
- Haworth, Richard G., chairman of the board, Haworth, Inc.Haworth (company)Haworth designs and manufactures adaptable workspaces, including raised floors, movable walls, systems furniture, seating, storage and wood casegoods. Family-owned and privately held, Haworth is headquartered in Holland, Michigan in the United States. Haworth serves markets in more than 120...
- Herrick, Kent, Vice Chairman, president of Thermogy LLC; Tecumseh EnginesTecumseh ProductsTecumseh Products Company is a manufacturer of hermetic compressors for air conditioning and refrigeration products.Tecumseh Products Company has subsidiaries that sell externally and internally to Tecumseh. The Tecumseh corporate offices are located in Ann Arbor, Michigan.- History :Tecumseh...
' founder’s great grandson - Jenkins, Phil F., founder and CEO of Sweepster Inc
- Kinnan, R. Douglas, Senior Vice President and C.F.O. for Amerisure Insurance.
- Lehman, Joseph G., President
- Levy, Edward C., Jr., President, Edw. C. Levy Co.
- Lockwood, Rodney M., Jr., Chairman/CEO of the Lockwood Companies
- Maguire, Joseph P., Treasurer; president of Wolverine Development Corporation
- McLellan, Richard D., Secretary; McLellan Law Offices; formerly Dykema Gossett Law Firm
- Olson, D. Joseph, Chairman, Founder of MCPP; Senior Vice President & Counsel – Government Relations, Amerisure Insurance Companies
- Reed, Lawrence W., President Emeritus of MCPP; president of the Foundation for Economic EducationFoundation for Economic EducationThe Foundation for Economic Education is one of the oldest free-market organizations established in the United States to study and advance the freedom philosophy. Murray Rothbard recognizes FEE for creating a "crucial open center" that he credits with launching the movement...
Former members
- Gail Torreano, Chief of Staff to then-Senator John Engler
- John Riecker, Hillsdale CollegeHillsdale CollegeHillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, United States, is a co-educational liberal arts college known for being the first American college to prohibit in its charter all discrimination based on race, religion, or sex; its refusal of government funding; and its monthly publication, Imprimis...
and Comerica Bank - Margaret Riecker, Republican National Committee, Dow Foundation
- William Rosenberg, Bush Presidential Campaign, Reagan Administration, Michigan Gov. William Milliken and Gov. John Engler administrations
- Robert TeeterRobert TeeterRobert M. Teeter was an American Republican pollster and political campaign strategist.-Biography:Born in Coldwater, Michigan, Teeter worked in various capacities for four presidents, and numerous governors and senators. Formerly the president of Market Opinion Research, he later founded an Ann...
, RNC Chairman, Pollster for Nixon, Ford, Bush campaign - Philip Van Dam, US Attorney appointed by President Gerald Ford
- Gregory Kaza, Republican State Representative
- Dick DeVos, Amway, Republican Candidate for Governor
- Charles Van Eaton, Hillsdale College
- Peter Cook, Great Lakes Mazda, major Republican campaign donor
- Dick Antonini, Foremost Insurance
- Todd Herrick, Tecumseh Engines founder’s grandson